Grifter Game Classic Crime Library Book 3 edition by Lawrence Block Mystery Thriller Suspense eBooks
Download As PDF : Grifter Game Classic Crime Library Book 3 edition by Lawrence Block Mystery Thriller Suspense eBooks 
Your name’s Joe Marlin, but you change it almost as often as you change your shirt. It’s David Gavilan when you skip a hotel bill and head for Atlantic City. You left empty-handed, and you need luggage to check into a decent hotel, so you grab two checked bags before the owner turns up to claim them. They’re monogrammed L.K.B.—so now your name is Leonard K. Blake.
But you’re not the only L.K.B. in Atlantic City. L. Keith Brassard is the owner of those suitcases you picked up, and he’s also the husband of the gorgeous blonde who picked you up. One suitcase is full of his clothes, and his pants are too big in the waist and too short in the leg and no good to you at all. But however different the two of you may be built, you’ve got the same neck size and the same sleeve length, so the man’s shirts fit you just fine.
And so does his wife.
And when you open the second suitcase, you’ve got your hands full. Because it’s full of white powder, and it’s just what you think it is.
Uncut heroin.
Your name’s Joe Marlin, and you’re used to playing the angles and working the short con—sleeping with married women and stealing their jewelry, beating checks in restaurants, making quick scores and disappearing, turning up miles away with a new name and the same old say of getting by. But you never met a woman like Mona Brassard, the kind of dame who gets in your blood like malaria germs. And you never had an opportunity handed to you like what you found in LKB’s suitcase. Not the one with the shirts and cufflinks. The other suitcase, holding a fortune in pure skag.
You’re probably in way over your head. You should probably cut and run.
But you can’t, can you?
Grifter’s Game was Lawrence Block’s first crime novel, the first book published under his own name. A lot has changed in the half century since it first appeared—but it’s still got one of the most shocking and powerful endings in all of noir fiction.
This Classic Crime Library edition of Grifter's Game includes as a bonus the opening chapter of another noir classic, The Girl with the Long Green Heart.
Grifter Game Classic Crime Library Book 3 edition by Lawrence Block Mystery Thriller Suspense eBooks
In the afterward to this novel, Lawrence Block tells the story of how it was the first book published under his own name and how it has been published with a variety of titles over the years (initially Block had titled it 'The Girl on the Beach'; it was first published as 'Mona' although the title 'Grifter's Game' had been suggested by the publisher or agent; and finally it has now been published as 'Grifter's Game' under the Hard Case Crime imprint). He wrote it in 1960, while living 'in a small apartment on West Sixty-Ninth Street between Columbus and Amsterdam avenues'.Of the various main characters that Block has created over the years - Evan Tanner, Bernie Rhodenbarr, Matthew Scudder, Chip Harrison, and my favorite, Keller, the philatelist hit man, Grifter's Game's Joe Marlin is less ironic and humorous, and ultimately much less sympathetic. I was expecting something more similar to the more mature Block characters that I have enjoyed in his other books, and the conclusion of this book was a bit of a surprise to me. That's not a bad thing, though, and overall it's a good story and interesting not only because it is a good example of Block's very early work. In fact, if he was writing this well so soon in his career, then it is no surprise that he came to be as successful as he did.
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Grifter Game Classic Crime Library Book 3 edition by Lawrence Block Mystery Thriller Suspense eBooks Reviews
The central figure in Grifter's Game is seedy conman Joe, who has as many aliases as he does scams. Duping rich women and making off with their money is part of his game. He plans everything thoroughly, and when things do not go on his terms, he can always skip town and blow off a $600 hotel bill, like he does at the beginning of this story. Sometimes the con game doesn't go exactly as planned though, like when he just happened to steal a suitcase with a large stash of heroin and he happened to meet Mona. Mona, the one he sizes up as his next scam victim, might just have a few games of her own. Mona, it seems, has a rich husband, but she's not the happy wife.
This is my second Block read and my first the Hard Case Crime series. Much like the other read from Block (The Sins of the Fathers), Grifter's Game is a compelling read that pulls you in and compels you to finish, even though you do so with a sense of foreboding. In Grifter's Game, he manages to do this despite underwhelming, lowlife characters. The real strength of Grifter's Game is the power of Block's gritty prose, and his sense of direction in advancing the story with several key conflicts and well-timed surprises.
I did find the main characters to be rather lackluster and unsympathetic. It was difficult to invest in their fate because they were all too immoral with nothing for the reader to latch onto or sympathize with. There were also several key coincides that conveniently fell in, especially towards the end.
As far as the ending, it is rather disturbing. Definitely unexpected and dark, and not in the way I thought it might turn out.
Still, Grifter's Game is a quick and compelling crime novel, one that entertains and engages the reader from start to finish. Lawrence Block's writing really made this one work, giving the plot a hardboiled feel that you might expect while reading Chandler, Cain or Hammett. Fans of noir should definitely give this one a try.
The whole concept of grifting - or, at the very least, writing a novel about this fine and highly developed art of human endeavour - has had the effect of creating yet another sub genre within the crime genre field. I must admit to having developed a taste for these books, but then again, who wouldn’t, if you are already a fan of the murder mystery, and a fan of Mystery Grand Master Lawrence Block.
It’s irrefutable, by George.
Grifter’s Game is the first crime novel Mr Block had published under his own name. That event occurred back in 1956, and its a tribute to the quality of the story that its still available to purchase almost sixty years later. The story revolves around a natural born Grifter by the name of Gavilan (well, that’s his *first* name, anyway) who is a professional con man. Staying at expensive hotels for weeks at a time, running up huge bills for accommodation, food, drinks, anything you want. And managing to skip town without paying, and without grabbing the attention of the law. But always looking for, and meeting, attractive young women, with or without rich husbands, and on the lookout for some quick money. Some times this works, but sometimes it just bounces back in your face.
So this cat is cool. He soon finds himself in Atlantic City, and in the possession of a very smart looking and expensive briefcase belonging to Mr ’KLB’. Inside the briefcase is close to a kilogram of top grade Heroine. And as luck would have it, he then meets up with a beautiful woman going by the name of Mona. It turns out Mona is married to KLB and of course KLB is not who he pretends to be.
The Gods of Fate are now laughing at you, Mr Gavilan.
The final solution to the book will leave you breathless. The overriding sensation throughout the story is one of wonder. The book grabs you with the opening chapter (a heck of a lot happens there, you know) but chapter four is pivotal to the novel’s story line, and it also possesses some of the book’s finest writing. My favourite from this part of the book comes from KL 756
’... The dinner was probably good. Big hotels cook dependably if not imaginatively. They don’t ruin steaks, which was what I ordered. But I didn’t taste my dinner. I thought about him and I thought about her and I tasted murder instead of meat.’
And another little titbit for those considering entering into a life of crime comes from KL 1461. I won’t quote it here, so that you can discover it yourself.
There are plenty of twists and turns in this oh so glorious cross-double-cross-triple-cross murder mystery; so many in fact that the reader will find it hard to put the book down. One could feel let down by the book’s short length, and it’s relatively small reading time. But it’s so gosh-darned awesome that you could easily restart your kindle at KL #1 and pretend you are opening the tome for the very first time.
So this is an obvious full marks from me. GRIFTER’S GAME is a joyous, adventurous, sexy, fun-filled but most of all brilliant way to spend three hours of your life. The Gods of Fate enjoyed it (you can hear them, laughing at the story’s main characters at various points in the story’s plot line) but more importantly, everyone who picks it up will enjoy it too. The final reward for our Grifter may not have come to him if he had the strength to walk away from his metaphorical Eve, but this just goes to show he is just as flawed as the rest of us.
BFN Greggorio!
In the afterward to this novel, Lawrence Block tells the story of how it was the first book published under his own name and how it has been published with a variety of titles over the years (initially Block had titled it 'The Girl on the Beach'; it was first published as 'Mona' although the title 'Grifter's Game' had been suggested by the publisher or agent; and finally it has now been published as 'Grifter's Game' under the Hard Case Crime imprint). He wrote it in 1960, while living 'in a small apartment on West Sixty-Ninth Street between Columbus and Amsterdam avenues'.
Of the various main characters that Block has created over the years - Evan Tanner, Bernie Rhodenbarr, Matthew Scudder, Chip Harrison, and my favorite, Keller, the philatelist hit man, Grifter's Game's Joe Marlin is less ironic and humorous, and ultimately much less sympathetic. I was expecting something more similar to the more mature Block characters that I have enjoyed in his other books, and the conclusion of this book was a bit of a surprise to me. That's not a bad thing, though, and overall it's a good story and interesting not only because it is a good example of Block's very early work. In fact, if he was writing this well so soon in his career, then it is no surprise that he came to be as successful as he did.
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